1696
Year 1696 (MDCXCVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar). __TOC__ The year 1696 had the earliest dates for equinoxes and solstices for 400 years in the Gregorian calendar, because this year was the last leap year of the century, and subsequent years (by skipping leap day, also in 1700) allowed the equinoxes to edge towards later dates. However, prior to the 1582 Gregorian reform, the equinoxes were even much earlier, by the extra 10-day shift. See 1903. Events of 1696 : HMS Sovereign of the Seas accidentally burns.]] January - June * January 27 - In England, the ship HMS Royal Sovereign (formerly HMS Sovereign of the Seas 1638) caught fire and burned at Chatham, after 57 years of service. * January 29 (O.S.) - Peter the Great becomes sole tsar of Russia, upon the death of Tsar Ivan V * January 31 - In the Netherlands, undertakers revolt after funeral reforms in Amsterdam. * January - In England, the Recoinage Act passed in Parliament. * January - Colley Cibber's play "Love's Last Shift" is performed at the Theatre Royal. * March 7 - English king Willem III departs from the Netherlands. * April - Fire destroys the Gra Bet (or Left Quarter) of Gondar, the capital of Ethiopia. * May 31 - John Salomonsz is elected chief of Saint-Eustatius. July - December * July 18 - The fleet of Tsar Peter I of Russia occupies Azov at mouth of Don River. * July 29 - French king Louis XIV and Victor Amadeus van Savoye sign peace treaty. * August 13 - State of Drenthe announces Willem III as mayor. * August 22 - Forces of Venice and Turkish troops clash near Molino. * October 29 - Fuller Baptist Church is founded in Kettering, England. * November 21 - John Vanbrugh's "Relapse or Virtue in Danger" premieres in London. * December 19 - Jean-Francois Regnard's "Le Joueur" premieres in Paris. * December 24 - The Inquisition burns a number of Marrano Jews in Evora, Portugal. Undated * Polish replaces Ruthenian as an official language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. * A famine wipes out almost a third of the population of Finland and a fifth of the population of Estonia. * Abington is settled. * William Penn offers an elaborate plan for intercolonial cooperation largely in trade, defense, and criminal matters. * The Second Pueblo Revolt occurred. * Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville captured and destroyed St. John's. Births * January 5 - Giuseppe Galli-Bibiena, Italian architect/painter (died 1757) * March 27 - Antoine Court, French Huguenot minister (died 1760) * March 5 - Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Italian painter (died 1770) * June 11 - Francis Edward James Keith, Scottish soldier and Prussian field marshal (died 1758) * June 27 - William Pepperrell, English colonial soldier (died 1759) * July 14 - William Oldys, English antiquarian and bibliographer (died 1761) * August 2 - Mahmud I, Ottoman Sultan (died 1754) * August 12 - Maurice Greene, English composer (died 1755) * September 27 - Alphonsus Liguori, Italian founder of the Redemptionist order (died 1787) * October 13 - John Hervey, English statesman and writer (died 1743) * November 2 - Conrad Weiser, Pennsylvania's ambassador to the Iroquois Confederacy (died 1760) * December 22 - James Oglethorpe, English general and founder of the state of Georgia (died 1785) *''date unknown'' - Benning Wentworth, colonial governor of New Hampshire (died 1770) : See also 1696 births. Deaths *January 11 - Charles Albanel, French missionary explorer in Canada (born 1616) *February 8 - Tsar Ivan V of Russia (born 1666) *February, Ahom King Supaatphaa or Gadadhar Singha *March 14 - Jean Domat, French jurist (born 1625) *March 18 - Robert Charnock, English conspirator (born c.1663) *April 17 - Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, French writer (born 1626) *April 30 - Robert Plot, British naturalist (born 1640) *May 10 - Jean de La Bruyère, French writer (born 1645) *May 26 - Albertine Agnes of Nassau, regent of Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe (born 1634) *May 30 - Henry Capell, First Lord of the British Admiralty (born 1638) *June 17 - John III of Poland (born 1629) *August 2 - Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, Scottish military commander at the Massacre of Glencoe (born 1630) *September 17 - John III Sobieski (born 1629) *December 4 - Meishō, empress of Japan (born 1624) *''date unknown'' - Daibhidh Ó Duibhgheannáin (born 1651) : See also 1696 deaths.